'Viridiana' (Luis Buñuel, 1961)
Explanation:
Luis Buñuel was a Spanish writer and film director who lived during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) He was an active member of the Spanish Republic which had communist tendencies. During the conflict between the republican forces and the fascist rebel, he was already a consecrated film director and was working alongside the Hollywood industries in the USA, so when the fascist rebels won the war against the socialist republic and the extreme right dictatorship was installed in Spain, the government of United States decided to banned Buñuel's work and cancel the projects he was doing with Hollywood, do to his sympathy with the socialist ideal.
He was selected as a public enemy of the state by the dictator Francisco Franco, so he was forced to exile to Mexico where the government at the time was very inclined towards socialist ideals. With this protection, Buñuel became a Mexican citizen and continued producing and directing films in total freedom.
In 1961 the government of the dictator Franco wanted to show the world that Spain was a civilized and free country in which the freedom of speech was granted so he allowed Buñuel to returned to Spain to film his new "great" project: "Viridiana" saying that the government would not interfere with the filmmaking and allow Buñuel to express all his creativity.
Buñuel transferred all his Mexican production to Spain for the filming, using Mexican actors and actresses to avoid scandalizing the Spanish actors of the time.
When Buñuel finished his work, he presented it to the filmmaking board of Spain so they can review the movie. The board scandalized with all the heretic ideas and especially by the end of the movie. So they forced Buñuel to change it. Then he filmed an alternative ending, being smart enough to hide the threesome between the three characters in an "innocent" scene that shows the three persons playing cards.
When the film was shown to Franco and the Vatican authorities they burst in fury by the sexual connotations, heresies and the clear hidden message at the end of the movie, so they decided to ban the movie in Italy and Spain. The dictator ordered to destroy the one copy of the film but the Mexican actress Silvia Pinal managed to escaped with the copy out of Spain. Later the movie was presented in Cannes and won the golden palm.
The controversy generated by this film made it famous around the globe thanks to the different censorship that the extreme right applied to it in the different countries where it was shown. It definitely is not the best work of Buñuel, but it's his most known work thanks to the censorship...so it can be said that the right religious fanatics' censorship totally backfired to them, because thanks to them the movie is part of the universal movie culture.
Nowadays "Viridiana" is the only Spanish film awarded with the golden palm, although it wasn't shown in Spain until 1977 as a Mexican movie. It was until 1982 (after the Dictatorship ended) that Viridiana was officially recognized as a Spanish movie.
